Posts

Showing posts from May, 2014

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

Image
Summary from Goodreads : Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you, you lose a family member, you can't pay the bills. But it can be pretty great, too: you've had the hottest sex of your life, you get that plum job, you muster the courage to write your novel. Everyday across the world, people go through the full and glorious gamut of life - but sometimes, a little advice is needed. For several years, thousands turned to Cheryl Strayed, a then-anonymous internet Agony Aunt. But unlike most Agony Aunts, this one's advice was spun from genuine compassion and informed by a wealth of personal experience - experience that was sometimes tragic and sometimes tender, often hilarious and often heartbreaking. Having successfully battled her own demons while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed sat down to answer the letters of the frightened, the anxious, the confused; and with each gem-like correspondence - of which the best are collected in this volume - she proved t

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler...by Italo Calvino

Image
Summary from Goodreads : If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration--"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given

Required Reading: May 2014

Image
It's the merry month of May! (well, at least I hope it's going to be merry) Here's how I fared for the April Required Reads: 1. The Alienist by Caleb Carr - (4/5 stars) A little bit dragging but I still enjoyed it. It's Victorian CSI meets Sherlock. 2. We Live In Water by Jess Walters - (5/5 stars) It's sad and funny and heartbreaking and bleak and witty...I was very happy about this short story collection. 3. If On a Winter's Night A Traveler...by Italo Calvino - (3/5 stars) Until now, I am not sure how I will manage to churn out a review for this loony book. All I can say, for now, is that it was a unusual reading experience. 4. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed - Unfinished. I am about 80% in. It's pretty good though. May 2014 Required Reads: Visit I Like it Dog-Eared for more information 1. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Me. But I promised myself that this will be the year to try